There's a disturbance in the leaves unlike the rustling of the wind or the movement of the wildlife. It's a subtle thing, insignificant except that in this moment it means everything. He exhales slowly as he counts out five heartbeats and then his body moves, motion almost beyond his control. The natural reaction of a predator facing off against its prey, he slides through the movements without conscious thought.
Leap, block, trap, slice.
Gasp, gurgle, thud.
The blade is wiped of blood. He laments, for only a moment, that he once again does not have a chance to truly let loose. To unleash the fire in his soul, burning just beneath his skin. He aches to become a whirlwind or an earthquake. He dreams of becoming a storm, lightning and piercing rain intermingled. Any opportunity to truly test his strength against a worthy foe would be welcome.
He watches and waits for a moment while he ponders before leaning down to inspect the body. There are whispers of foreign nin taking severe precautions, rumors of extremists booby trapping their own bodies to ensure they take out as many enemies as possible with their death. One he's certain it's safe he moves in and dresses down the enemy, quickly and efficiently, with a skill born of long practice. The mask is removed to reveal an ordinary looking face. Brown hair, one green eye open while the other is closed. The corpse's pale white skin is stained a deep red with the blood still dripping from his neck.
"Dammit," he mutters. He rips the dead man's sleeve off and swears again when he sees the brand on his forearm. It is most definitely not an insignia used by Village Hidden in the Clouds. It looks far too much like the mark found on the Bloody Mist Hunter Nin. Also known as exactly the kind of ninja that really does not belong this far North.
One way or another this can only lead to more pain and bloodshed. If word of this nin gets out — no, when word of this nin gets out, because he can't assume this is a rogue agent and he can't hope that this knowledge won't spread like wildfire — it will be terrible. If his sensei had worried war was on the horizon before, now he'll be certain of it.
Once again, Sarutobi Hiruzen thinks, it looks like my sensei is right. Tobirama will never let this go. Maybe I should enjoy the easy kills while I can.
He alights upon the training ground, his father landing gently behind him. Tobirama along with his brother Hashirma, Hiruzen's teammates, and Danzo are all already there waiting for him.
"Is now really the best time to go, monkey-butt?" Danzo jokes. There are a lot of jokes like that flying around these days, morbid jesting at the prospect of utter annihilation. No one knows what battle on the scale looming ahead will be like; the Warring Clans were terrible. Hiruzen grew up on those stories, but no clans have ever made any alliances even half so far reaching as a Village.
There's an undercurrent of fear that permeates every word, every action, every thought in the Village. Everyone is reacting to the mounting conflict in different ways. Drinking, indulging in hobbies, crying themselves to sleep at night.
Training. Training so hard his muscles give out and his fists bleed. Before the sun rises until long after it falls beyond the horizon, only stopping when he has no chakra left to spend.
That's what today is all about, taking his training to the next level. "There'll never be a better time than today, Danzo. Who knows how long our peace will last?"
"No more talk of sad things, now. Today is a happy day! Sarutobi Hiruzen, you are the first summoner in your family in a long while, and if all goes according to plan a new peace is upon us. We should rejoice! Perhaps our peace will last forever? I have high hopes that this upcoming Summit of the Five Kage should prove very fruitful," Hashirama says, as he seems to be an endless font of positivity and joy. Tobirama's ever deepening scowl in response isn't even a surprise. Sarutobi can't help but feel a surge of affection for his sensei.
"I still feel the Summit is a mistake, brother. I have told you—."
"Sarutobi Sasuke!" Hashirama interrupts his brother, ignoring whatever naysaying had been on the tips of Tobirama's lips. Tobirama lets out a light sigh but does not continue his advice as Hashirama bowls over him. "Thank you for allowing my brother and myself to teach your fine young son. Speaking from experience, he has been the best pupil any shinobi could ask for!"
"I could not have asked for any greater teacher's than the leader of our foundling Village, the creators of our great peace," Hiruzen's father inclines his head in deference as he speaks.
"You flatter us! Now, Hiruzen, do you have the scroll?"
"I do. We went through the ritual last night. I am officially the next Sarutobi Summoner."
"Good! This training trip shall be a boon to you. If you're lucky, those chimps may even teach you to be a Sage like me; then you and I can have a proper spar!"
"Please don't accidentally kill my student, brother." Tobirama's dry remark leaves Hiruzen smirking.
Hiruzen deliberately ignores the nasty look on Danzo's face at the praise and attention he's receiving. Their rivalry is long standing and Hiruzen is sure he's worn a look just like that the last time Danzo bested him in a spar. This training trip is more important than their rivalry could ever be, though. It may be the edge he needs to survive the coming war. More importantly, it might give him the power to ensure his comrades all make it back alive as well.
He centers himself and reaches for the pool he feels deep within, ever swirling as it sends chakra out along his pathways and absorbing the energy back into itself as it flows through him. A deep breath and he begins drawing on his power. It responds quickly and eagerly, willing to surge forth at his beck and call the way it always does. Casting ninjutsu is almost second nature to him and he's practiced this so much over the last 12 hours that his hand signs are almost as easy as breathing.
He is still meticulous with his hand signs, regardless of how comfortable he is. It's still a new technique and he doesn't want to mess it up.
Dog, Boar, Bird, Monkey, Ram, Summoning Jutsu!
A small puff of smoke accompanies Hiruzen's Summoning, spreading out from the sprawling black script that now adorns the ground. The presence of the chakra smoke irks him; his control is meant to be better than this. He'll need more practice with this particular technique.
Before them stands a small red and grey furred macaque.
"A Summoner for less than a day, and already you're calling on us? What could you possibly need?" His voice is high pitched and mocking, almost screeching in its tone. The little monkey drags its hands down its face, pulling his lower eyelids down as he implores Hiruzen. "And what's with the audience?"
Hiruzen locks up his embarrassment deep within himself, contenting himself that at least he has a Summons, unlike Danzo who is now smirking at this unexpected turn of events.
Who would have ever expected the monkey to be so rude?!
Hiruzen bows deep and low to his soon-to-be guide.
"Honored Macaque, I thank you for accepting one such as myself as your Summoner."
"You're a Sarutobi, aren't you? We always take a Sarutobi when they ask. That's our ancient pact." There's a pause in his speech, and Hiruzen detects a reticence, a wariness before he continues almost in a mutter "Although, we haven't been asked in quite a long while."
Hiruzen ignores the heat that rises to his cheeks at that admission. He has spent the last twelve hours believing that when the blood of his signature had settled the night before it meant he'd been accepted on his own merits. He has been trying to convince everyone around him to accept him for his own skills rather than his family's name and the stories of legends long past ever since he was put on a team under Tobirama-sensei.
"I have Summoned you today because I have a favor to ask of you, not on my own behalf but on the behalf of my entire Village." He flexes every muscle as he keeps himself in place, his body tightening into a statue as he refuses to let his embarrassment move an inch from his deep bow of respect.
There is silence, then, in the training ground. He wonders, for less than a second, if all his companions and friends have abandoned him to the mercies of his new Summoned companion before he uses the rest of the senses at his disposal other than his sight. He hears their low, even breathing and can nearly smell the tension in the air, the light wafting of their sweat an indication of their worry for him. Their chakra signatures are all around him as well, none of them bothering to smother themselves completely while within the safety of the village.
Well. Relative safety.
"Help, is it? What help could we offer? What do you need of us? Perhaps more importantly, what do you ask of us?"
"Training, Honored Macaque."
"Oh ho? Is that so? Well, that might be arranged. Let me see you." The monkey reaches out and grasps Hiruzen by the chin, pulling at his face while his torso remains bowed so that the monkey can stare him in the eyes.
"Hmmmm. There's potential, I suppose. We'll have to see, won't we?" A grin spreads its way slowly from one furry ear to the other. Suddenly there is a puff of smoke that encompasses the whole training ground. When it clears, the macaque and Sarutobi Hiruzen are nowhere to be found.
"Well, he was an odd fellow, don't you think?" Hashirama laughs out loud while Tobirama massages his forehead.
"Please don't make light of the fact that my student just disappeared with a mysterious monkey. Worse, all we can do is hope that he's safe and returned to us in time. We don't know how long until the war breaks out in earnest."
"Don't be such a worrier! Everything will work out well and your student will be home safe and sound before you know it!"
Hiruzen expects the transportation to be disorienting. He mentally and physically prepares himself for all manner of discomfort. For example, the Substitution Justu gives many people an odd sense of being disoriented both while it is being performed and for a short period after. Ninja train diligently to curtail their natural response to the effects of Substituting themselves somewhere else in space.
Yet, the Reverse Summoning is not at all uncomfortable. It is not much of anything, to be honest. It happens in the moment between heartbeats, lasts no longer than the duration of a blink. One moment he is in the forest, the next he is watching the smoke clear around him as he finds himself on a small rocky ledge. His next breath is tight from the thin air, as are all the ones that follow, and he doesn't have much room to stand.
Looking down off the face of the ledge shows him a sheer drop downwards. He tries to peer down as far as he can, even going so far as to channel chakra directly through his eyes in an attempt to see better, clearer, farther.
His vision is blocked by a layer of thick, fluffy clouds. He is quite high up, it seems.
He cranes his neck upwards to see how high the cliff face extends. His vision is blocked by another layer of clouds.
Well then. Either he is stuck or it's going to be a long trip.
"Been here only a few seconds, and already lollygagging around? Ha! You'll need to work harder than that if you want our help for your Village!"
The macaque is dangling from a protruding rock, grasped within one hand. His message given, he flips himself around then begins to scramble up the mountain. Hiruzen sighs but rubs his hands together as he begins to circulate chakra into them.
Just like tree walking. It's a simple exercise: climb the mountain. He is tempted to walk straight up it, parallel to the ground, if only to stick it to the monkey for mocking him. But no, he has to keep his temper in check. The Will of Fire is a double-edged sword, he knows that all too well. What's worse, without any knowledge of how high the mountain reaches, he has no clue how long he'll be climbing for. Better not to fall due to arrogance.
Hand over hand, ledge by ledge, he climbs. He becomes bored soon enough and begins reciting the Shinobi Rules his sensei has taught him. When that becomes too tedious, he begins counting instead in an attempt to see how high he can reach. With each new handhold a number, he finally stops counting when he reaches well into hundreds. He allows his mind to wander, a meditative state coming over him as he runs through breathing exercises in time with his climbing gait.
Anything to keep his thoughts away from the growing ache in his arms with each stretch, the dull throbbing in his legs, interrupted with a sharp staccato of pain every time he has to leap for a new handhold. The sensation is not debilitating, merely a nuisance slowly filling his awareness. If only the climb were a challenge, with difficult handholds or tricky maneuvering, there would be something to engage his mind and distract him from the slowly building rawness of his palms as the coarse mountain wears away at his skin. But he has climbed more difficult trees, in his time, and the only challenge offered here is monotony and a test of pure physical prowess.
His chakra surely helps ease his pains, circulating over and through his body, but he seems to climb forever. Does this mountain ever end? He wonders, briefly, if he will climb so high he will ascend into the heavens. Do the Monkey Summons live next to the Gods?
Sore and exhausted, he grabs onto a hold and pulls himself up, surprised to see not another small ledge, but a cave. An optical illusion in the way the mountain is formed has kept it from his view. He hefts himself up and in, rolling onto his back. He takes a moment to simply breath.
Then he swivels and kicks up to his feet before running through the stretches that he knows will soothe his aching body. Breathing and relaxing is nice, but cramps and soreness are not. The small macaque that has brought him here is sitting on a rock, silent while Hiruzen works.
"Are you going to stand here all day, or are you ready to continue? If you're this lazy all the time, I don't think we'll be able to train you, Sarutobi."
Fire burns in his gut, the single sign he needs for a Great Fireball Jutsu tickling at the tips his fingers. He will not, cannot allow himself to be baited. Yet his Will of Fire demands he protect his pride; it burns and crackles just beneath the surface.
He is not lazy! No matter what anyone says, no matter the "genius" label people apply to him, he works diligently on his skills. In order to be the best shinobi he can be, he has to sharpen the natural blade of his talent on the whetstone of sweat and determination.
He cannot allow this tiny monkey to tempt his anger and get the better of him. He grits his teeth instead and clamps down on the raging inferno within that attempts to break through and realize itself in swathes of burning chakra every time he is reduced to "just another genius."
"I am ready at your leisure, Honored Macaque."
"Oh, so polite! Who taught you to grin and bear it so well, shinobi boy, eh?" The little imp has a grin stretching from ear to ear and a laugh that scrapes the inside of Hiruzen's skull, more a screech than anything else.
The little monkey leaps towards him and lands on his shoulder. "Onwards, my steed!"
Hiruzen only rolls his eyes as he walks deeper into the cave. When the light begins to finally dim from the outside such that he can no longer see, he doesn't pause in his step before remedying the situation.
He has many ways he can deal with the darkness. The Cat's Eye Jutsu, the Earth Style: Blind Like A Mole Jutsu, but in the end Hiruzen settles on something that might allow his little passenger to see as well.
Never a bad idea to make a good impression or earn the favor of his new partners, regardless of how annoying they are. His chakra coils within him, and he pulls on it, dragging it out. His fingers flit between a few well-known hand signs, and he clicks his teeth together once as he breaths out a steady stream of flame. He passes one fist through the stream, circulating chakra throughout the tenketsu in his palms and on his knuckles. He allows the nature of his chakra to come to the fore as he feeds it to the flame. The flame drinks greedily, and he forces the flow to slow and peter out into a manageable draw rather than a sucking inferno.
The flames flicker, floating just above his fingers and casting shadows on the cave walls. A gentle warmth suffuses him, one he hasn't realized he's been missing as the cave cooled the deeper he trekked into it.
"Finally, something useful out of you!" The monkey cackles from his place on Hiruzen's shoulder, swatting at his head. Hiruzen keeps his grumble inaudible, continuing to walk. He hopes all the monkeys aren't like this one.
The winding, treacherous path of the cave gives way to sharp turns and jutting stalagmites he has to traverse, but after the face of the mountain it's more a welcome game of balancing and leaping than a struggle. He is utterly shocked when after one particularly sharp and towering formation he stumbles out into the sunlight.
A light whoosh accompanies the sputtering out of the flame as he takes in the scene before him.
Paradise.
A huge waterfall splashing down into a serene pool, droplets of water spraying into the air and teasing at a glittering rainbow under the gleaming sun. A field of grass spreading out from the pool, with monkeys of all shapes, sizes, and breeds scattered about. They are running, jumping, climbing, and playing in an ever-swarming mass of fur. The field turns into forest. A forest! Shinigami take him now; this mountain has a valley deep within it large enough to hold a forest!
The ridge of the valley also has many monkeys running around it, although they seem to steer clear of one particular section, cordoned off by two large identical chunks of stone.
"Let's go, let's go!" the monkey on his shoulder cries. "We have a ways to go yet, and it won't do to be late!"
"Where to, Honored Macaque?"
"Behind the waterfall! Aren't you supposed to be skilled? How good can you be if you're not even observant!"
"Your home is so magnificent it took me of my senses, Honored Macaque. And I feel safe with you by my side. I won't allow it to happen again."
"Flattery!" The little monkey drags upon his eyes again, pulling the lower lid down in a dramatic pose. "That's the last thing we need!"
The monkeys, big and small, part around him as he walks toward the waterfall. It seems as though they are always just out of reach, coincidence or happenstance keeping them from knocking into him as they jump to and fro. Not in any noticeable way, at first, but his suspicion tingles and his curiosity is piqued. He doesn't trust it, curious despite himself, and begins a little test. Something small to prod at the inkling of a thought he has. He takes a deliberate turn that will lead him to intercept a small group of monkeys that shouldn't be able to notice him at all. He tenses lightly, ensuring he can dodge at the last moment because he knows they definitely can't see him coming and he doesn't truly want to stumble over them.
Not a single furry body impacts against him, and not once do they make it look anything but natural.
Impressive.
The waterfall crashes into the pool, sending ripples throughout and spray into the air, the water stilling the further out he looks. As he gazes, he realizes it's more of a lake than a pool, spreading deeper into the valley than he'd thought. There is a second waterfall, falling out of the valley rather than into it, dropping off into the distance. A larger waterfall than these he has never seen in his life, and he has watched his sensei — who can create tsunami's and rainstorms from nothing in the desert wasteland that is the Land of Wind — perform the Water Style: Heavenly Waterfall Basin Jutsu in the Land of Whirlpool. He thought he would never see anything so magnificent and yet Hiruzen thinks this waterfall might be the source of all rain throughout the Elemental Nations.
The closer he gets the louder the water splashing into the lake becomes until it is an all-encompassing roar. He can feel the rumble in his skull and through his body, awe inspiring in its magnitude. He reaches out with all five of his natural senses anyways, trying to hear beyond the deafening crash of water on water. He strains and is inwardly pleased when he hears an odd echo, obscured by the raging of the water but faintly perceptible with enough focus. A secret cave, then, just as the Macaque has said.
He gauges and leaps, chakra enhancing his distance and strength as he soars straight through the water. Inside the hidden cave is an even more fantastic sight than the forest and grass valley that hid its location. A gigantic bridge of iron stands before him, leading towards an ornate stone palace. The palace is crafted in such a way that it seems to be fading back into the edge of the cave, or perhaps carved out of the cave itself. It stands imposing before him, seeming to loom high as it looks down to judge him.
"Well?" His companion asks as he leaps from Hiruzen's shoulder to the ground to walk under his own power. The small macaque looks over its shoulder, one eyebrow quirked. "Are you coming or not?"
With the blind faith that can only be mustered in the face of all his most fantastic bedtime stories coming to life, Hiruzen follows.